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(Bwx .ioliifc anir our Jiiib in ibis Crisis. 



A SEEMON 



THE L^ST iSriGHT 



MR. BTJCHAMN'S 



PRESIDENTIAL ADMIHISIRATIOII, 



% 



PEEACnED IX THE 



FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, 



POUGHKEEPSIE, N. Y., 



BY MOSES TYLER, 



PASTOR. 




POUGHKEEPSIE: 

PRINTED BY PLATT & SCHRAM, DAILY EAGLE OFFICE. 

18G1. 



£74-^0 
•J 

H2 



PorGHKEErsiE, Makcu 4, 1861. 
Moses Tyler, 

Pastor of the First Congregational Church of Foughleepsie : 

Deae Sir :" — The undersigned respectfully request, for publication, a copy 

of your Sermon delivered Sunday evening, March 3d. We ask this favor, 

from a conviction that a careful study of the subject there presented by you 

■will bo of great service to all those who are asking the important question, 

"What is the Christian's duty in regard to the great Crisis in our National 

Affairs" ? We hope you will feel willing to comply with our request. 

Very respectfully, 



John Cooper, M. D., 

E. ^Y. Frost, 
T. B. Bunnell, 

Chas. H. S. Williams, Jr., 

W. Schram, 

Charles A. Townsend, 

James M. Van Wagner, 

S. Knickerbocker, 

J. H. Jackson, 

F. Chichester, 
C. H. Sedgwick, 
Geo. W. McLellan, 
Geo. W. Caldwell, 
A. B. Wiggin, 

J. E. Mann, 



A. B. Smith, 
W. C. Allen, 
G. K. Lawrence, 
M. C. Sands, 
W. I. Husted, 
Wm. Backus, 
Abraham Wiltsie, 
Jos. G. Frost, 
Geo. Hannah, 
Wm. E. Beardsley, 
Geo. Wilkinson, 
King, Brothers, 
A. G. Purdy, 
Enos C. Andrus, 
John J. Brooks. 



Isaac I. Piatt, 
Geo. H. Beattys, 
J. ir. Cogswell, 
N. H. Schram, 
Alfred Atkins, 

D. B. Jaycockes, 

E. W. Mason, 
Chas. II. Pvoberts, 
Edw'd Storm, 
Sidney Fowler, 
J. K. Eice, 
Charles Scott, 

J. Wiltsie, 

F. A. Utter, 



PouctHkeepsie, March 4, 18G1. 
Messrs. J. Cooper, M. D., A. B. Smith, and others : 

Gentlemen : — I send you herewith a copy of the Sermon to which your 
note refers. Very respectfully yours, 

MOSES TYLEE. 



SERMON. 



'• And tliere are dilTereiices of adiiiiiiititrntions, Ijxit tUo eamo 
Lord. "—I CoBI^TIIIAN8, XII : 5. 

The time-pieces in your pockets arc ticking history 
to-night. 

The atmosphere, v/hich wraps this young continent, 
is tremulous with the throb of a far-resounding crisis. 

Between the hour of this evening's service and to- 
morrow's day-break, will lie a strip of time that is to 
form the terminal boundary of one mighty, chaotic and 
influential tract, in the experience of a hemisphere. 

Another four years of American history have un- 
folded their tragedy and their comedy, and have disap- 
peared behini the curtain of eternity; — behind that 
curtain from whose envelopments neither plaudits nor 
condemnations will tempt them to emerge. 

This Sabbath evening's hours are the expiring ones 
in the life of one great quadrennial Administration. 
The clock of the Republic, wound up to run for forty- 
eight months, now palpitates languidly through its last 
strokes, and yields the sluggish weight to its brief rest- 
ing-place. To-morrow, that hand which represents the 
majesty of the People's Will, is to put the key into 
the socket, and wind the works for a new period in 
the onward flow of our civic life. 

Under any circumstances, this would be an impressive 
night — a time for that 

" kindly mood of melancholy, 



That wings the soul and points her to the skies." 

Under any circumstances, it would be a very solemn 
fact to us that we had reached the end of another chap- 
ter in time, so distinct and so large. For these gov- 



4 
ernmental stages, these national Olympiads, are signifi- 
cant to the individual, as well as to the mass. They 
are way-marks in our own personal lives. With most 
bewildering rapidity, do these administrative terms 
chip off largo segments from our earthly existence. 
They are data which sweep back across oui entire past ; 
we reckon our private histories by them ; and as we 
reflect that each one means four whole years, we are 
reminded that time's throat is a very broad one, and 
that it is swallowing down our little life-spans, with 
huge and greedy mouthfuls. 

" Fierce Spirit of the glass and scythe— what power 
Can stay him in his silent course, or melt 
His iron heart with pity!" 

Under ordinary circumstances, the simple fact of hav- 
ing brought to an end another four years, Vi^ould be an 
incident mighty with lessons to us all, and most espe- 
cially worthy of commemoration in a Christian Church, 
and amid the stilly influences of this sacred hour. 

But why need we try to muffle and disguise the fact 
that to all these ordinary and manifold sources of interest 
are added, at this present juncture, a multitude of others, 
which reach around our souls with cold and spectral 
hands, chilling us to fear, and producing, 

" For many days 



And nights as many, 

That nameless terror in the breast, 

Making us .timid and afraid 

Of God and his mysterious ways." 

We are in the midst of a revolution. The very 
foundations of the Commonw^ealth are heaving with 
the commotions of the hour. We are already encounter- 
ing the fury of an earth-blinding tempest; and the 
most rapt of our« seers know not whether this be but 
the outer skirts of the storm, and whether we are not 
swiftly plunging forward toward its whirling centre, to 



experience a wrath aiul a tumuli and a peril, coinparcd 
with which, what we liave now lelt is l)ut a laiiii and 
harmless prelude. In this portentous lionr, our politi- 
cal meteorology seems baffled. Our sages are conlound- 
ed; — they can but gather together in unpeaceful Peace 
Conventions, and talk, day by day, "an infinite deal of 
nothing" ; and finally dissolve in a cloud of glory over 
resolutions carried through by artifice, and denounced 
as soon as taken liome. Our best Statesmansliip all 
this while is indeed still oracular; but now, alas, oi-aeu- 
lar only because ambiguous. No man tells us what or 
where the end is to be. We know not into what shape 
this Confusion will issue. It seems not improbable that 
our eyes are to see that "veil" uplifted which Daniel 
Webster shrank from penetrating ; and that our vision, 
even though it should be seared with the stare, must 
look, full-fronted, upon "that scene" lying behind, from 
the sight of which lie prayed God to be delivered. 
Where is the prophet of pleasant things who will ven- 
ture to assure us that ire are not to behold, and very 
soon, "the sun in heaven, shining upon the broken and 
dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union ; on 
states dissevered, discordant, belligerent , on a laud 
rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, with fra- 
ternal blood." Or, who can prove to us that we are not 
to know one thing even worse than this V Vv ho can 
make it certain to our minds, that up to that mocking 
idol, the hollow, glimmering and treacherous ghost of 
a Union — whose glorious realiiy, even, we liold to be 
infinitely 

Thau libcfty ;iii(l truth and righteousness,"" — 

is to be offered, an ignominious holocaust, the dignity, 
the moral purit}^ the manhood, of twenty millious of 
freemen, and the eternal rights, so long outraged and 
i2:nored, of four millions of slaves ! 



6 

Standing to-night, as we do, at the point of intersec- 
tion between two governmental administrations, look- 
ing backward over the irreparable past of the retiring 
poAver and forward upon the possible future of the ad- 
vancing one, and remembering that we are at that "tide" 
in our affairs which may "lead on to fortune," and- to 
national redemption from a consuming curse, or which, 
not "taken at the flood," may leave us high on the un- 
moistened strand, the wrecker's victims and his spoil, 
we feel it to be our privilege, as Christian men and 
women, and in imitation of our grand old New England 
ancestry, whose Ecclesiastical Polity this Church glories 
to represent, and in the spirit of all the Churches in 
the American Revolution, to carry the awful business 
of the public weal into this our Puritan "Meeting 
House," and here to lay all our anxieties before that 
listening Father, whose help we devoutly crave, as we 
try to study our duties and our hopes in this moment- 
ous crisis. 

Mine, I am distinctly conscious, is not the task of a 
statesman, to devise and advocate any scheme of civil 
policy. Nor am I, in this place, at all concerned with 
the special platforms or special interests of partisan or- 
ganizations. My purpose is purely an ethical one. As 
the appointed teacher of one portion of Christ's beloved 
flock, your pastor is called upon, by every obligation to 
the Master and to yourselves, to show how the princi- 
ples of our fjiith may guide our individual action and 
affect our individual peace, amid the perturbations of 
the tim.e. What would the Master have us to do ? 
What would he have us to think ? How would he 
have us to feel ? 

In brooding over this subject for many days and 
weeks, that I might from time to time fittingly speak 
here in my place what should seem to be needed, dur- 



7 
ino' these agitations, the singuhxrly applicable verse 
which I have made the text, to-night, has constantly 
floated before my mind. "And there are dillerences 
of administrations but the same Lord!" I know that 
the superficial reference of this ancient sentence is not 
the same as the identical words would have, if con- 
structed now and among us. I know that when King 
James' forty-seven scholars, two centuries ago, trans- 
lated by the expression, " dilYerences of administra- 
tions," Paul's phrase, ^laipstrsig 5taKonuiv^ they intended no 
prophetic allusion to the governmental peculiarities of 
the unborn American Republic. And yet, even in the 
original use of these words, there is fundamentally that 
Avhich harmonizes with the meaning of the English 
translation to our American ears. Paul was speaking 
of the various kinds and degrees of offices in the early 
Church ; and his intention was to declare, that over 
these multifarious ministries, services, administrations, 
presided the same august and unchanging Lord. After 
all, then, the deeper thought underlying Paul's state- 
ment and comprehensive of it, is the very one which 
we had already attached to the sentence. Over all 
earth's changes the Lord rules, and changes not. These 
ministries, or services, or administrations, represent the 
visible, the formal, the official, the temporal, and there- 
fore the mutable and fleeting, in this world; and 
though these may vary in eminence, and though, like 
all visibilities, they may wane and pass away, yet the 
Lord, standing in authority above them all, is the same 
to them all. The Eternal overshadows the evanescent : 
and through all degrees of official prerogative, and 
amid all the mutations of governmental power, we may 
look up unto the same, ever-abiding, ever-presiding 
Lord ! 
And this thought, it seems to me, will communicate 



8 
to ns just those lessons for the hour, of which, as Chris- 
tian men and Avomen, we are now in need. The lessons 
to which 1 refer, classify themselves in two divisions. 

I. Lessons of Consolation. 

II. Lessons of Dutv. 

I. And in the first place, then, I assume it as a cer- 
tainty that we do all need some strong, healthful, calm- 
ing thought, to bo our possession amid this anarchy. 

Indeed, the man who at such an hour denies that, 
but for some divine trust, he would be soul-rocked and 
in anguish, acknowledges his own moral degradation : 
he confesses that the deadly peril of his country is to 
him a thing of indifference. He who is not utterly in- 
sensible to the eloquence of ancestral memories — to the 
sacred freightage of the May Flower, to the hallowed 
promises of the struggle for Independence, to the deeds 
and the hopes and the prayers of Washington ; nay, he 
who is not utterly insensible to the throbbings of liber- 
ty all round the earth, to the destinies of civilization, 
and to the dearest hopes of the human race, must look 
forth across the troubled sea of the Commonwealth, 
with solicitude and with grief Institutions, civil liga- 
tures, ideas of the Constitution, which we had thought 
capable of sustaining any pressure, have broken and 
failed us. We are adrift on a stormy gulf We need 
some light through the clouds : we need the chart of 
some mighty, guiding truth : we need what the old, 
storm-battered Puritans had, a faith — a faith in some- 
thing higher than earth, and better than man. My 
friends, we all know what it was which made those Pu- 
ritans so grand. It luas^ that through alli^erils^ reverses^ 
obloquies^ tlteij helieved in the living God I 

There is no hero-food in this practical Atheism of 
our century. And we shall never be nourished into 



9 
hero-proportions, until wc come to feel it, as an eternal 
verity, that above all these convulsions on the eartii, is 
onr Heavenly Father, "the same Lord," who "walketh 
upon the wings of the wind," and who ''holdeth the 
tempets in his fists." And when we do reach that 
vantage-gronnd, we shall begin to comprehend the 
victories ofMarston j\Ioor and Naseby and Drogheda ; 
we shall begin to understand the martyrdom of Sir 
Henry Vane, and of Algernon Sidney; we shall begin 
to know whence came that taper-light which glimmered 
from Washington's hut through the long midnight of 
Valley Forge ; and, for ourselves, we shall begin to in- 
hale that breath, borne to us down the skies, which will 
lift us up from the ghastly paradise of despair. "There 
are differences of administrations, but ilie same LorcV 
That thousfht makes us assured that the foundations of 
this government were not laid in sand; that this mar- 
vellous contexture of Anglo-Ameriean life has a mean- 
ing ; and that this Empire of the People, born in prayer 
and in suffering and in consecration, is not thus sud- 
denly to explode before the universe, to be time's 
mockery and byword ! 

And furthermore, my friends, if God be "the same 
Lord," then we know that while this Ship of the Re- 
public, put together by those grand, godly, old master- 
builders of the 17th and 18th centuries, is not to go to 
pieces thus early in its cruise, so also God will not 
prosper the projects of those men who would metamor- 
phose the craft of freedom into a gigantic slave-ship, 
consecrated with the satanic apparatus of the "Middle 
Passage," and prowling the seas, for the single pur- 
pose of defending, spreading and perpetuating this 
atrocious system of human bondage. 

Both these hopes, my friends, may be our consolation 
to-night : First, the ultimate safety and unity of the 



10 

Republic. We are not to be a liemispliere of petty 
principalities. Nature, in the conformation of the 
continent, has decreed that we shall be one : while the 
intelligence and virtue of our population, and the in- 
terests of man, unite with our faith in Providence, and 
comport with these edicts of Nature. And if one Re- 
public, then 2ifvee Republic. The fiat has gone forth. 
Slavery on this continent is doomed. Nay, its own 
dogs everywhere are turning against it, and hounding 
it out of the world. This is the irresistible destiny of 
events. The black stain is to be erased from our stand- 
ard. The infamous ethics of Ostend Manifestoes, and 
Dred Scott Decisions, and Lecompton Constitutions, are 
to be revoked. Yes, my friends, from this ancient faith 
in our fathers' God, who is "the same Lord" over all 
the centuries, we derive for the present hour this two- 
fold lesson of consolation ; — that out of all this com- 
motion God will ultimately deliver us, a united and a 
free Republic. 

I say, ultimatehj. It is not for such as I to speak of 
precise times or modes. Nor am I so sanguine as to 
predict that this final deliverance will be seen by us ; 
for I remember that saddening page of Guizot, on which 
he says : ''In all great events, how many unknown and 
disastrous efibrts must have been made, before the suc- 
cessful one ! Providence, upon all occasions, in order 
to accomplish its designs, is prodigal of courage, of vir- 
tues, of sacrifices, of men ; and it is only after a vast 
number of unknown attempts, apparently lost, after a 
host of noble hearts have fallen into despair, convinced 
that their cause was ruined, that it triumphs !" 

II. Turning, now, from the lessons of consolation, 
which these times require, let us try to study also their 
lessons of duty. 



11 

And that 1 may grasp a cluster of duties within a 
single proposition, I would say, in the outset, that this 
is pre-eminently a period for serious, i\\\(}i prayerful, and 
s uper-pa rfis a n ill owjli t. 

It is with a profound conviction of the importance of 
the proposition, that I claim that we are in the midst of 
events, wdiich demand seriousness on our part. 

This is no plea for a lugubrious and doleful spirit. • 
For, with that foith in God, of which avc have spoken, 
we ought to be animated, cheerful, and full of hope. 
Bnt it is a principle of human nature that when men, 
having some hnge and awful w^ork to do, are equal to 
the work, and are resolved to achieve it, they are always 
serious. Seriousness, in view of such a business, involves 
that gravity of character, as opposed to a giddy and 
volatile trifling with momentous concerns, which is at 
once the sign and the pledge of men's earnestness, of 
their stability and force. 

If there is any one trait in the French character, 
which, more than any other, makes us despair of its fit- 
ness for a nationality without a despotism, it is that 
hideous French mirth, that grinning and chattering 
and flippancy of theirs, amid terrible civic convulsions. 
It leads us to feel that the French soul is, after all, too 
shallow a sea for the leviathan of liberty to swim in. 

So has it seemed to me that there is something ghast- 
ly in the factitious merriment which some people affect 
in these times. How unnatural, that amid perils to our 
country's greatness and goodness, so vast, so mysteri- 
ous, so appalling, American citizens can see nothing 
but pabulum for jests and illustrations for the Comic 
Weeklies ! It makes one fear that the old hero-blood 
of the fathers has died out of their children's veins. 
Ah, my friends, the men who, in any century, have 
founded nations or saved them, have not been chatter- 



12 

ers and grinners. Their serious faces look down upon 
us, from tbeir majestic pedestals, along all the past. 
The consuls and senators of republican Rome seen 
to shed a solemn glory through those stately centuries. 
The men who conquered at Worcester, and saved the 
English Constitution, did their work in the fear of Je- 
hovah, and in full view of the Judgment Day. And 
can you think of the men who stepped forth upon 
Plymouth Rock, and who founded this latest and great- 
est civilization, as any other than men of profound 
seriousness ? 

And not less, in this hour of peril, is seriousness de- 
manded. On us — the people of America — rests the 
responsibility, with the help of God, of saving our in- 
stitutions. We must face that tremendous task. And 
the men — so insensate — who can sit together in jovial 
circles, and make merry over the wounds and sorrows 
of our beloved country, are doubtless the very indi- 
viduals referred to by Douglas Jerrold, who, according 
to his expression, would whet their knives upon their 
fathers' gravestones, to stab their mothers with ! 

That this is an hour for seriousness, seems to be as- 
serted by instincts whose significance Ave may not have 
recognized. For example : we read in the public jour- 
nals that sales for the Inaugural Ball move slowly ! And 
is it strange ? A National Dance in the midst of Na- 
tional Disunion, and on the brink of a Civil War!- I 
do not wonder that the sales lag. Men feel that this 
is no time for minuets and mazourkas, for schottisches 
and quadrilles ! 

It seems to me that, were I to stand on that ball 
room floor to-morrow night, I should discover a fatal 
incongruity between those festivities and all men's 
thoughts. I should recall the imagery of Boccacio, as 
he portrays the revelries of his countrymen, when the 



13 

Plague was making a chanicl house of Italy. 1 sliould 
think of that famous ball in ''Belgium's Capital," ou the 
night of Waterloo ; when the chivalry of the kingdoms 
were tripping the gay steps of tlie dance, so soon to be 
changed to hurrying haste, and martial strides, and to 
find their speedy rest in the ghastly quietude of the 
soldier's grave. I should remember how, in Paris, in 
1830, a few hours before the Revolution, at a gorgeous 
ball in the Palais Royal, Charles X. eluded a nol)lenuin 
on his pallor and his sadness, and how the nobleman 
responded, ''Sire, it seems to me that we are dancing 
over the mouth of a volcano !" 

Not merely serious thought, however, but prayerful 
thought, also, is especially demanded by these times, 
and belongs among the duties of the hour. 

We are an assemblage of Christian men and women, 
and we believe that one name of God is — The Prayer 
Hearer. At all times, do we feel it our duty to plead 
our country's interests before him — but with a peculiar 
earnestness, in such a crisis as the present. 

And if any people ought to know the value of prayer 
it is the American people. From 1620 to 1783, this 
nation was swathed and baptized in prayer. Never has 
any government been founded, not even the old He- 
brew Theocracy, in which there was a more distinct 
recognition of the God of Nations, and the cfilcacy of 
praying to him. And if yon will glance through the 
writings of Washington and Jefferson, of the Adamses 
and the Otises and the Lees, you will observe that so 
overshadowing, in their minds, was the thought of 
God's actual interposition in human affairs, that they 
could scarcely pen a private note, oi* a military des- 
patch, or a legislative resolution, without expressing 
this conviction. 

And among the hopeful signs at the present moment, 



14 

is a partial restoration of this sentiment among our 
public men. There can be no doubt that Mr. Buchan- 
an's recent recommendations of a resort to prayer, are 
entirely sincere and heartfelt. And an extract in one 
of our City Dailies, last week, struck a sacred chord of 
tears as it summoned before us the very tones of our 
Patriot Fathers: "Abraham Lincoln professes to enter- 
tain a profound conviction that this country is in the 
hands of God, the Maker and Ruler of all men — that 
all things are ordered by his hand, and that to him 
alone can he, as President of this people, look for aid, 
guidance, and ultimate success." 

Noble sentiment ! Noble man ! 

"/?i hoc signo vinces'''' ! 

It is like a living breath from the lungs of Seventy- 
Six! 

And the very best of all the speeches which our new 
President made on his tour to the Capital, was his first 
one ; when, bidding good-bye to his old neighbors and 
life-long friends, with tears running down his cheeks, 
and sentences broken off because his heart would not 
let his mouth finish them, he asked them to remember 
him in their prayers. 

Yes, President elect ! and though those words were 
spoken in low tones, and a thousand miles away, we 
heard them here in Poughkeepsie, and heard have 
they been, across the entire bosom of the continent. 
And we, too, will try to pray for you. At our fire- 
sides, in our closets, in our public assemblies, we will 
I'emember that tender and touching request ; and on 
the aspirations of millions of hearts shall you be up- 
borne to the God of Presidents and of Kings. 

T shall not linger long upon the duty mentioned last 
in the cluster Avhich wc have combined — the duty of 
,v I ip er-pa rt mi 1 1 th ou gh t. 



15 

When the Declui'ation of Independence was pronml- 
gated, as we all know, there were conflicting- parlies 
amonr^ the Colonists. Bnt as the clouds of that awful 
crisis rolled up tlie sky, all patriotic men WM that il" 
xlnierican liberty was to be won, partisanship must be 
ignored. 

My friends, we are in the midst of a He volution, not 
less vast, it may be, nor less influential, than was that 
mighty one of the Eighteenth Century : and if the 
Constitution, which that struggle achieved the right of 
making, is to be saved from demolition, there is need 
of the same patriotic superiority to party feeling. 

Mr. Bancroft has recorded a remark of Christopher 
Gadsden : "There ought to be no New England man, 
no New Yorker, known on the continent : but all of us 
Americans." So, to-day, there ought to be no tenacity 
of old organic distinctions ; but all of us Americans, 
sons of a glorious lineage, and as such sworn to uphold, 
while he does right, the hands of him whom Provi- 
dence has made our leader in this tremendous confu- 
sion. 

I have thus exhibited the triple obligation of seri- 
ousness, of prayerfuluess, and of super-partisan feeling, 
as belonging, with especial emphasis, to the duties of 
the hour. 

I have reserved, for a separate and final considera- 
tion, one other duty — the duty of holding fast to prin- 
ciple^ and of sioearing anew our allegiance to the right. 

In such a time as this, when all other things become 
unsettled, there is imminent danger that our conscien- 
tious convictions will partake of the prevalent relaxa- 
tion and confusion. 

In such a time as this, when so many vast interests 
are imperilled, there is imminent danger that we shall 
be overpo^vered by the pathetic pleadings of a mistaken 



16 

Patriotism, and, for tlie sake of present safety, barter 
away our holiest vows; and, to win a temporary ad- 
vantage, sacrifice righteousness and truth. 

Oh ! how impressive is such a plea ! PIoav seductive 
are such temptations ! 

It is fitting that we should gather together, in the 
sanctuary, to-night, and here, before God, take oath 
over again, that, whatever else may impend, we will 
never give up the Ptight ! Here, and to-night, let us 
refresh our memories, and reinvigorate our moral pur- 
poses, vv'itli a new recital of the truth, that, while civil 
dissension is a great evil, while sectional hostilities are 
a great evil, while disunion and war and devastation 
are a great evil, there is yet one evil, evermore and 
everywhere, infinitely greater, and that is, to do ivrong I 
What shall a man give in exchange for his conscience ? 
And what beauty, henceforth, can there l^e for our 
hearts, in those once sacred words, "The Republic," 
"The Union," "Our Native Land," if they have come 
to signify moral degradation, assent to infamous wick- 
edness, and the subserviency of thirty millions of free- 
men to the cat-o'-nine-tail dictation of an oligarchy of 
a few thousand slavocrats ! 

The most fearful thought to any man, who, with 
proper spirit, comprehends the features of this crisis, 
is, that any concession to the slavery-propagand- 
ists, at this particular time, involves not merely a 
fatal acknowledgment of weakness in the government, 
but the thorough debauchery of the conscience of the 
people. It was bad enough ever to concede to this 
great system of wickedness. But to make such con- 
cession in 1783, in 1820, in 1850, was a very different 
thing from doing so in 1861. Tliey sinned: but it was 
with a moral sense upon this subject only partially edu- 
cated. If ice sin, it will be a conscious, a deliberate, 



17 

an iiiGxcnsaule deatli-stalj to our moral natures. ""Wlion 
the unclean spirit/' which had gone out of a man. is 
permitted to re-enter his flesh-temple, ''he findeth it 
empty, swept and garnished. Then goetli he, and taketh 
with himself seven other spirits move wicked than him- 
self, and they enter in and dwell there ; and the last 
state of tliat man is worse than the first. Even so shall 
it he also with fin's luicJced generation.'''' 

It is, of course, not my province to say anything, in 
this place, about innocent measures of conciliation; but 
it is my province, and my duty, to give utterance, from 
this Christian pulpit, to Christian truth concerning com- 
promises. We profess to be a Christian assembly ; fnid 
I do declare to you, that, in that Gospel which we ac- 
cept as of supreme authority, there is no such thing 
recognized as a compromise. Betvreen right and 
wrong, between truth and falsehood, between God's 
empire and Belial's, Jesus Christ asserted an eternal 
and an irreconcilable hostility. Why, m}- friends, Jesus 
would not have been crucified had he been willing to 
make a compromise with Caiaphas, Annas, and the 
other hierarchs. The first Christians might have escaped 
persecution, had they been willing to compromise by 
casting a handful of incense on Caesar's altar. 

But not only is compromising a wickedness : it is 
also a blunder. The greatest mistake our Others com- 
mitted, was in introducing the first compromises : and 
every compromise which has been made since has de- 
feated its own purpose, and involved us in deeper 
difiiculty. 

Let us do what is right, and leave it with God to 
take care of us. 

And if it be affirmed, that the Union cannot be held 
together without granting a new lease to slavery, that 
is, without doing wrong, our answer is, first, let us 



18 
make the experiment. All our present woes have come 
upon us through a strange forgetfulness, on the part of 
Northern people, of the simple proposition in human 
nature, that there can be no better Pacificator, than 

FIRMNESS IX THE RIGHT. 

My friends, in your juvenile encounters with English 
literature, did you happen ever to meet with this 
choice sample of the narrative style ? 

"An old man found a rude boy upon one of his trees 
stealing apples, and desired him to come down ; but 
the young sauce-box told him plainly he would not. 
' Won't you ?' said the old man, ' then I will fetch you 
down': so he pulled up some turf or grass, and threw 
at him ; but this only made the youngster laugh, to 
think the old man should pretend to beat him down 
from the tree with grass only. 'Well, well,' said the 
old man, ' if neither words nor grass will do, I must 
try what virtue there is in stones ' : so the old man 
pelted him heartily with stones, which soon made the 
young chap hasten down from the tree, and beg the 
old man's pardon. 

"Moral. — If good words and gentle means will not 
'reclaim the loiclced^ they must he dealt luith in a more 
severe manner."' 

My friends, on the 4tli day of the seventh month, 
1776, a little band of husbandmen planted a tree. At 
the time, it was only a slender and fragile shoot ; but 
it was from a very ancient stock — from the old Tree of 
Liberty, which, with infinite sacrifice, had been kept 
alive through long, dark centuries, and which, driven 
from all other lands, was planted here on this fresh 
soil, as the last and forlorn hope of humanity. 

But Avhen the story went abroad in the earth, that 
that slender twig had been planted, great armies has- 
tened over the seas to pull it up and to tear it to pieces. 



19 

The little baud of liiisl)au(lnien, however, were resolved 
to die rather tliau see it destroyed ; and so they made 
a ring with their own bodies around it, and tliere they 
stood and battled seven years, till at last tliuse f^-reat 
armies sailed back over the seas, convinced tlial Iik.'v 
could not root up the young tree of Liberty. Tlien 
immediately did it thrive lustily and fast. Its roots 
shot fiir and deep into the soil, and clutched the very 
bowels of the continent, and its branches rose liigh and 
wide into the sky, until they overspread the whole 
land, and the oppressed of all" nations came hither 
and sat down beneath its shadow and ate of its fruit. 

But the husbandmen who had planted this tree and 
had fertilized its soil with their blood, knew that with- 
out some defender the tree would be destroyed after 
they Avere dead. Therefore, they ordained that every 
four years, through all coming time, a man sliould be 
selected from among those who sat under the tree, 
whose duty it should be to "preserve, protect and de- 
fend it." Under this admirable system, no deadly 
harm had befallen tlie tree, until, in the month of No- 
vember, of last year, the "old man" who was, for the 
time, the Tree-keeper, looked forth into the garden, 
and found a great many rude boys up among the 
branches, not only "stealing" but destroying the fruit, 
stripping off the leaves, sawing and cutting into the 
branches, and rapidly laying waste the tree. And 
what did the "old man" do? He very softly and po- 
litely ''desired " them "to come down" ; but each "young 
sauce-box told him plainly he would not." AVhereupon 
the Tree-keeper, though with great timidity, and fre- 
quently "countermanding" his own orders, fitted out a 
military expedition against them, which would have 



*ExCEPX OUK OWN. 



20 

liad a fine effect, liacl it not been for one sliglit draw- 
back, to wit, that the expedition had not been furnish- 
ed with any weapons ! Of course, "this only made the 
youngsters laugh, to think the old man should pretend 
to beat them down from the tree with crass onlv." 
And, now, what did the Tree-keeper do ? Why, hear- 
ing thousands of voices crying to him to deal with 
these boys "in a more severe manner," he was on the 
point of doing so : when the boys up in the tree cried 
out to him that he must not "throw stones" at them, 
that it would be very wrong for him to do so, that he 
had no right to do so ; and he asked them to tell him 
why it would be wrong. Whereupon tJiey replied, 
that "of course he had no right to bring them down, 
by throwing stones at them, for that would be ' coer- 
cion' V' 

This seemed to the Tree-keeper an entirely new view 
of the case. And, staggered by the irresistible argu- 
ment, he went back meekly into his house, saying to 
himself, in melancholy tones, "It is true, I promised to 
' preserve, protect and defend ' this Tree of Liberty, 
and those boys are hacking it to pieces, and they ought 
to come down from the tree. I knov,^ that I have au- 
thority to 'desire' them to come down, and to throw 
turf at them : hwi then, if they do not obey, of course 
I have no right to 'coerce'' them to come down." 

Ah, Sir Tree-keeper, had you but recalled the wis- 
dom of the "Elementary Spelling Book," which you 
studied in your youth, long ago had those "rude boys" 
hastened down from the tree and begged your Excel- 
lency's pardon. 

We come back to the exact issue. We lay it down 
as the Christian truth concerning our duty, at the pre- 
sent hour, to consent to no further concessions to slave- 
ry. And if we are told that some concession is neces- 



21 

saiy to the preservation of the Republic, we reply by 
utterly denying the statement. Concessions cannot 
save us. Concessions have l)oen our national curse. 
If we are to be ruineil, it will l)e the consequence of 
concessions. If we desire to pacify the South, let us 
prove to them that we Diean what we say. Firmness 
in the right is the best pacificator. But if adhering 
to the right will not save the Union, then the Union is 
not worth saving. Let the Gulf States go out and 
compact their sand-rope Union out of Disunion ele- 
ments ; and if they will, let the Border States follow, 
and tie themselves upon the skirts of the Piratic Con- 
federacy ; but let us come out from among them, and 
touch not the unclean thing ! 

But while we are talking, moments heavy with des- 
tiny are rolling on. 

Four years ago, to-morrow, an aged man, tiie com- 
panion and survivor of the mighty statesmen of a de- 
parted generation, ascended the Capitol steps, and, in 
the presence of the wise, the eloquent, and the beauti- 
tiful, of the Republic, with solemn mein and gesture, 
assented to this oath : '^I do solemnly swear that I, will 
faithfully execute the ofSce of President of the United 
States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, 
protect and defend the Constitution of the T^^nited 
States." 

But while in the very act of enduing himself witli 
the responsibilities of this fearful Sacrament, he un- 
folded his manuscript, and among otlier stately sen- 
tences, pronounced these : 

"Next in importance to the maintenance of the Con- 
stitution and the Union, is the duty of preserving the 
government from the taint or even the suspicion of 
corruption. Public virtue is the vital spirit of Repub- 
lics, and history proves that when this has decayed, 



90 



and the love of money 1ms iisuqDed its place, although 
the forms of a free government maj^ remain for a sea- 
son, the substance has departed forever. '"' * '-• 
Having determined not to become a candidate for re- 
election, I shall have uo motive to influence my conduct 
in administering the government, except the desire 
ably and fliithfully to serve my country, and to live in 
the grateful memory of my countrymen." 

Ah, what lofty sentiments ! Multitudes who had en- 
dorsed his election were momentarily elated with the 
hope of beholding once more, a wise, an impartial, a 
lirm, a pure, a truly national and conservative adminis- 
tration of the government. 

Alas, how sad our delusion ! 

We did not then know that the eyes of Andrew Jack- 
son had looked through this man, and that the dying 
lips of Andrew Jackson had pronounced him hollow. 

Alas, we did not then know that this high-toned 
preaeher of public virtue and of an uncorrupted gov- 
ernment, had been elevated to his office by stupendous 
fi-auds in his own state, and that he would immediately 
surround himself with a council of broken-down gam- 
blers, of treasury thieves, and of conspirators against 
the Constitution. 

Alas, we forgot, for one moment, that the hand 
which was then raised to take the oath of office, was the 
very hand which w^rote the most immoral Manifesto 
ever promulgated in Christendom. 

How could we have been so deluded as to hope for 
good fruit I'rom such a tre&l "Do men gather grapes 
ftoni thorns or figs from thistles" ? 

0, James Buchanan ! in our hearts, to-night, remem- 
bering this auspicious beginning, this ignominious, this 
disastrous ending of thy Presidency, we pity thee. 



23 
Who would, for any reward, take lliy iianu^ in liistory, 
and thy place "in the hearts of thy countrymen"! 
Alas, poor, weak, timid, vacillating;, selfish old man, 

wluit thouglits must 1)0 thine, to-niii'liLl 

To-morrow, too, another and a youiii;-er man ^-oes 
up those same Capitol steps, to take that same solemn 
Sacrament. Our hearts, our prayers, shall go up with 
him. May he uot disappoint the sacred hopes of mil- 
lions ! 

"Bo just, and f^ar not : 
Let all tlio ends thou aim'.^t at bo thy country's, 
Thy God's, and truth's; then if tliou fall'st, O Cromwell! 
Thon fall'st a blessed martyr." 

My friends, four years more liave passed out of our 
lives. 

Within this period, what changes have taken place 
— changes to us all ! 

This city, I am told, has experienced changes — 
changes in its edifices, changes in its population, 
changes in its churches, changes in its pastors. How 
many bright and earnest days have these years let 
deep into your breasts ! Ah, how many sad and stricken 
and desolate ones ! xind as you look about you here, 
this evening, I know that some of you are missing dear 
hearts, which, four years ago, were beating in joy and 
health by your side. 

Four years onward from to-night, and where shall 
we be ? Surely not all here — not all on the earth ! 
Sorrow, days and nights of anxiety, must overtake us 
— each and all. It is probable that by the open graves 
of some of you I shall be summoned to stand, and, as 
earth meets earth, and forms beloved are covered from 
view, I shall have to whisper, in the ears of the deso- 
late, the consoling words of Him who is the Resurrec- 
tion and the Life. Or, perhaps, that duty will be re- 



24 
versed ; perhaps he, whom you have so lately called to 
come among you, death-stricken in life's hopeful morn- 
ing, before he has become wonted to his armor, shall 
be commanded to put it off, and, that sword which he 
had so poorly learned to wield, be bidden to lay down 
forever. 

Four years onward from to-night, if I am alive, I 
shall probably be standing in this pulpit, and looking 
forth on some faces which would now be strange. Some 
of you vrill be gone from us, and from earth. I shall 
cast my eyes abroad over the congregation, and shall 
search in vain for features now becoming to me so well 
known and so much loved. But though 1 may see you 
not, I shall think of you. And, oh ! let me have it to 
tell those who may be here then, that your life went 
not down in draperies of darkness and in rayless gloom : 
give me, rather, the ability to tell them that, with min- 
istering angels girding you about like a retinue of 
golden summer-clouds about the setting sun, in the 
very hour of death casting a radiance of saintliest 
beauty far back across the dun pinnacles of the past, 
and with a well-founded hope as your pillow of peace, 
you sank to rest on the glory-couch of the Christian. 



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